After a dozen years of continuing combat in Southwest Asia, the term “warfighter” is in peril of being devalued by our political culture. In our eagerness to honor all people who serve, we make it sound like everybody who dons an army uniform is subject to the similar risks, and burdened by a similar sacrifices.
It isn’t so. Many so-called warfighters have never deployed to combat zones, and among individuals who have the hazards vary greatly. The toughest missions are performed by a relative handful of military personnel consisting of Army Rangers and Navy SEAL teams who routinely risk their lives within the performance of harrowing tasks. One such community of true warfighters is the Air Force’s personnel-recovery specialists, who fly helicopters into harm’s solution to rescue endangered combatants and civilians.
With fewer than 100 helicopters worldwide devoted to that mission, it’s a very small community. But since 9-11, this close-knit band of superbly trained specialists has saved over 5,000 U.S. and allied lives inside the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility alone, and thousands of extra lives in different places (including storm-ravaged parts of America). During that very same period, members of the personnel-recovery community have earned over 2,500 awards for his or her bravery. They have got also seen 20 in their brethren die in combat.
Given the high demand for personnel-recovery services and the impressive performance of these who practice its demanding disciplines, you may surmise that Air Force leaders assign a high priority to keeping this very special community well equipped and prepared for action. Well, no such luck: on any given day lower than two-thirds of the helicopters inside the dwindling personnel-recovery fleet are mission-capable, and this week Defense News reported there isn’t any money budgeted for purchasing new rotorcraft or extending the lives of these already fielded.
The Air Force says that is committed to the mission. Actually, Acting Air Force Secretary Eric Fanning said it earlier this week at an Air Force Association breakfast. But if you don’t budget for the revitalization of a fleet that has grown decrepit with age, you’re in effect backing faraway from the mission. So Aaron Mehta and Marcus Weisgerber of Defense News got it right after they wrote inside the result in their story this week that “the U.S. Air Force’s combat search-and-rescue mission is at risk of disappearing.”
Secretary Fanning says planners were asked to return up with ideas for modernizing the helicopters inside the 2016 defense budget. That might make it ten years for the reason that service first awarded a freelance for replacement of what was already thought to be an aging fleet. Back then, in 2006, combat rescue was rated by Air Force leaders as their number-two modernization priority. Now there’s less money to move around as a result of budget sequestration, and the program’s priority seems to have slipped to number 5 or 6. So why would we assume progress in 2016?
The simple truth is if we don’t fund a brand new Combat Rescue Helicopter now, then we aren’t going to do it later because money will remain tight. The composition of the defense budget is shifting faraway from investment so decisively that there’ll probably be less money later than there’s today. So it truly is the thanks that a number of bravest warfighters inside the Air Force get for risking their lives on a weekly basis in godforsaken places like Anbar Province. We can’t afford to purchase you safer helicopters, and we can’t afford to equip you for the trials of saving lives tomorrow.
Someday, maybe someday soon, real warfighters are going to die due to the delay in replacing personnel-recovery helicopters. When that day comes, everybody in Washington will rush to praise the sacrifices of these who’ve fallen. Wouldn’t it make more sense to arrange our priorities today so they don’t should die?
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